WhyrlGryph desc

I got bored and rewrote my gryphon character's desc. I've recently had to think about how he looks because I have three commissions going at the moment (wow, 3!). Pinning down the eye colour has always eluded me but I think 18x24 hit the nail on the head.

One benefit of describing my gryphon character is someone can just remove the leonine parts and get my eagle character. ;>

Whyrl is a quadrupedal gryphon male about the size and body shape of an Asiatic lion. His head, neck, chest, forelegs and wings resemble the Australian wedge-tailed eagle aside from the addition of swept back feathered ears. His feathers are generally mahogany brown whilst his leonine half is tan. He is 2m (6'7") long, 1.1m (3'7") at the shoulder and his tail is half his body length.

His most apparent feature is his bright tangerine coloured eyes which, framed by bony ridges above his eyes and striking bare lore patches below, lend him the typical piercing gaze of a raptor. His hooked bill is pale cream with a dark, charcoal grey tip. Directly below his eyes the base of his beak is edged with pink and curled upward slightly in a perennial smirk. The top of his crest bears thin dark reddish-brown feathers, blending into long amber hackles, giving the back of his neck a feathery mane.

Neatly preened plumage hides a powerful chest for beating his long and narrow wings. His wings are feathered black, with tan markers spaced among his tertials. The underside of his primaries are pale cream for the first third of their length then blend into dark brown. Both his shoulders are splotched with white feathers. His forelegs are feathered right down to the pale cream claws, sporting black talons for piercing his prey.

A line of dark brown fur extends from where the chest feathers borders his pale tawny belly and continues down the length of the belly to underneath his tail. His tail is the same colour as his rump except at the end where it fluffs out into a diamond shaped brown tuft.